Meet "America's #1 Rabbi"
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Rabbi David Wolpe will be in town next week for the American Jewish Press Association's annual national conference — he's the keynote speaker at the Simon Rockower Awards reception and dinner — and both events are open to the public. The Rockower reception, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday June 16, at the Scottsdale Hilton Resort & Villas, 6333 N. Scottsdale Rd., is $35.
For $115, you can attend the reception, plus the dinner and keynote, from 7:30 to 10 p.m. that same evening at the Hilton.
This is one you won't want to miss.
In case you are not aware of Wolpe's rock-star status in the American Jewish firmament, I've pasted in his bio below (from huffingtonpost.com). You might also like to know that he was named one of The Forward's Forward 50, as well as one of the hundred most influential people in Los Angeles by Los Angeles magazine. He has publicly debated Christopher Hitchens on God, been the focus of international controversy after giving a Passover sermon that discussed the historic validity of the Exodus from Egypt, and written candidly and movingly about battling cancer.
Mitch Albom, author of "Tuesdays with Morrie" and "The Five People You Meet in Heaven," called Wolpe's most recent book "a stirring case for the fullness of a life with belief and the emptiness of life without it."
Here's a link to some of Wolpe's writing, on the PBS website:
http://www.pbs.org/witheyesopen/afterlife_counsel_wolpe.html
And here's the bio:
"Named the #1 Rabbi in America by Newsweek magazine, David Wolpe is the Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, California. Previously he taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, The American Jewish University in Los Angeles, Hunter College, and he currently teaches at UCLA. Rabbi Wolpe writes for many publications, including regular columns for the New York Jewish Week, Washington Post On Faith, as well as periodic contributions to the Jerusalem Post, The Los Angeles Times, and many others. He is a monthly book columnist for L.A. Jewish Journal. He has been on television numerous times, featured in series on PBS, A&E, as well as serving as a commentator on the TODAY show, CNN and CBS This Morning. Rabbi Wolpe is the author of seven books, including the national bestseller Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times. Rabbi Wolpe's most recent book is Why Faith Matters (HarperOne)."
To make reservations, call 480.403.4602 by June 14.
Hope you can join us!
10 Jun, 2010 > Comment - 8 -
A few (very) bad apples
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It began with a friend’s Saturday afternoon Facebook status update on March 27.
He wrote, “Just saw something that you don’t see everyday in the East Valley: men dressed in Nazi uniforms holding flags with Hitler’s face and Nazi symbols. How sad that on such a beautiful day, hate would be on display.”
A few phone calls later, I’d determined that a handful of people in Nazi uniforms was protesting outside Temple Beth Sholom, in Chandler, which is where Rabbi Bryan Bramly was arrested last week on charges of raping a child. I’d also determined that there was a significant police presence there as well.
I typed “Temple Beth Sholom,” “Chandler” and “Nazis” into Google, and sure enough, the protesters’ blog came up. I knew it was the right one because the first sentence on the screen contained the words “Juden Raus!” (Jews out!)
Highly original, these American Nazis.
The blog post read: “As a result of this disgusting rabbi’s alleged sadistic and criminal behavior, NSM-AZ decided to stage a peaceful Saturday afternoon protest demonstration outside the synagogue that was host to this alleged parasitic urchin that preys on innocent children.” (NSM stands for National Socialist Movement, which claims it's the largest National Socialist Party, or Nazi Party, operating in the U.S.)
The weekend Nazis were shocked to find that there was a preschool at the temple. “Talk about letting the fox guard the hen house,” one wrote on the blog.
The irony, of course, is that the “innocent children” the neo-Nazis claim to be defending most likely are Jewish. In practically the same breath, the blog post goes on to explain that “Jews are not the nice timid innocent victims they portray themselves to be. Read their holy books and you shall find evil people with twisted perversions. They live among us, control our media and financial systems. They are destroying America from within.”
You’d think that if that’s what they honestly believe, the neo-Nazis wouldn’t care about the safety of kids at a Jewish preschool. But then, you’d be looking for logic where there is none.
Detective David Ramer, of the Chandler Police Department, confirmed that four people, three men and one woman, gathered outside Temple Beth Sholom dressed in Nazi garb that Saturday afternoon. Two carried rifles, which may have been what prompted several motorists to call the police and report them. One of the demonstrators was from Apache Junction.
“They told the officers that they’re aligned with the white National Socialist Party,” Ramer said, “and they were there to protest the Jewish sinner.”
According to the detective, things went pretty smoothly. “They understand their constitutional rights,” he said — not unlike the Westboro Baptist Church. “They have it down. I’m sure they’ve done this before.”
Bill Straus, head of the local Anti-Defamation League, said that even though the group’s actions may be constitutionally protected, “there’s no question about their intent — to terrorize, to intimidate — and we at ADL condemn all efforts to intimidate and terrorize a group of people.”
“The good news behind stories like this,” Straus said, “is that these people are a very small minority. There are more good guys than bad guys in the world. We lose sight of that sometimes. But my heart goes out to that congregation and anyone who happened to see (the demonstration).”
01 Apr, 2010 > Comment - 0 -
How to handle haters
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Perhaps you are already familiar with a certain Kansas-based hate group masquerading as a church. It’s become well known for picketing the funerals of prominent gay people, carrying signs that say “God Hates Fags,” and lately for picketing the funerals of American soldiers. (I can’t remember exactly why they hate the soldiers, but then again, it’s not as if their reasoning makes a whole lot of sense.)
Starting last spring, these haters have turned their seemingly inexhaustible, zombie-like attention to the Jews. Apparently we killed Jesus, and some other stuff. A logical argument, such as pointing out that Jesus was Jewish, won’t get you anywhere with them. Their approach is the pseudo-theological equivalent of “I know you are, but what am I?”
A few months ago a handful of them picketed Temple Emanuel of Tempe (with little to no reaction), and starting this Friday, Dec. 11, they’re baaaack, with a jam-packed schedule that begins with Hillel at ASU and ends with the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center. Our paper, Jewish News, is in there in the middle somewhere, as are Chabad and the big AIPAC event on Sunday morning. And, for no fathomable reason, they are also picketing the US Airways Center — “God Hates Your Sports, get that?” — and Independence High School, in Glendale.
We ran an editorial on the subject the last time they were here, and we’d like to repeat the same message loud and clear: Do not engage these people. Pretend they don't even exist. They are a fringe hate group looking for legitimacy, and their M.O. is to piss people off so that they react and the event escalates. That’s how they get news coverage, and that’s how they get other people arrested for harassing them. Their worst nightmare, having come all this way to draw attention to themselves, is to be entirely ignored – which is why I’m not even going to mention their name here.
10 Dec, 2009 > Comment - 1 -
L.A. shooting brings out the online haters
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A shooting in a Los Angeles parking garage early this morning in which two men were wounded may or may not be a hate crime — it’s too soon to tell, say the L.A. police and the city’s mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa.
The men were going to a prayer service at Adat Yeshurun Valley Sephardic, a synagogue in North Hollywood, when a gunman shot first one and then the other in the leg. Both men are recovering. Here are links to some of the news stories about the event:
http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-noho-synagogue-shooting,0,5720530.story
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091029/ap_on_re_us/us_synagogue_shooting
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/10/detectives-search-for-suspect-motive-in-la-synagogue-shooting.html
Hate crime or no, coverage of the shooting, not just the shooting itself, has brought the usual Web-emboldened anti-Semites crawling out onto the media comment pages. Sure, there were the right-minded posters, like the person on the LATimes site who asked, “Isn’t it time to look past the differences and realize that we are all one people, one planet? Will that day ever come?” But they are all too frequently in the company of the conspiracy-minded haters.
Another person writing on the Times Web site wondered why there were several stories on the shooting “and how many other people are shot down killed today and theres hardly any mention of those, if at all? and certainly not the rolling out of resources as is the example here? why is that?”
Oh, right — the story is getting covered because the Jews run the media. Silly us for thinking it was because a potential hate crime is worth reporting on.
29 Oct, 2009 > Comment - 0 -
Arizona academic made excuses for Hitler in 1934
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Stephen H. Norwood’s new book, “The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses” (just published by Cambridge University Press) is billed as “the first systematic exploration of the nature and extent of sympathy for Nazi Germany at American universities during the 1930s.” Among other things, it contains some startling news for Arizonans.
Norwood, a history professor at the University of Oklahoma, details how, on numerous college campuses in the U.S., prominent, educated Americans who should have known better chose to become part of the Nazi propaganda machine, in spite of the road signs pointing toward the Final Solution.
The book describes the Harvard administration’s 1935 decision to permit Nazi Germany’s consul in Boston to place a wreath bearing the swastika emblem in the university’s Memorial Church, at a ceremony attended by prominent Harvard faculty members and visiting professors from Nazi Germany. It chronicles Columbia University’s determination to “preserve friendly ties with Nazi Germany” through at least 1936, and the commitment of many Seven Sisters’ administrators and faculty members to serve as cheerleaders for the Reich.
Southwest academic institutions, alas, were not immune. Norwood reports that in the summer of 1934, for the first time, a group of American faculty and students traveled around Nazi Germany under the guidance of Nazi party and government officials. The purpose of the tour was to “correct…the false attitude toward the new Germany adopted by the greater part of the American public.” (It seems the American public had grown alarmed by what they perceived as the suppression of academic freedom in Germany, including book burnings.) According to Norwood, the tour participants elected as their group leader one Homer LeRoy Shantz, president of the University of Arizona. He was the only university president on the trip.
“Upon the group’s return,” writes Norwood, “their leader, President Shantz, trumpeted Hitler’s achievements….President Shantz described German agriculture and land use ‘as the most perfect ever developed’ and marveled that ‘(t)here are not as many weeds in Germany as in 1 square mile in this country.’ He described the German people as ‘busy and active.’ They backed their Fuehrer much as Americans backed President Roosevelt. Shantz expressed his disapproval of American press coverage of Germany, explaining that it reported ‘the worst possible events.’”
A German film crew produced a propaganda movie about the trip called “Germany Today,” which was distributed free on American campuses to counteract “Jewish atrocity propaganda” in the American media. It would be interesting to watch that film today, knowing exactly who — and what — Shantz and company were making apologies for.
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24 Jul, 2009 > Comment - 1 -
Ethnic studies: Dividing students?
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More than one reader has suggested that there’s irony in the fact that state superintendent of schools Tom Horne, who’s Jewish, supports a state senate bill that would do away with ethnic studies in public schools (S.B. 1069, sponsored by Tucson Republican Sen. Jonathan Paton). The exact language in the bill is “Prohibits Arizona schools from instruction in ethnic studies aimed at a particular group or that advocate ethnic solidarity.”
But Horne says his being Jewish and supporting the bill is the opposite of ironic.
“One of the reasons that the Jewish people have done so well in the United States is that we are treated as individuals and not as exemplars of a race,” Horne says. “And traditionally, the public schools have taken students from different backgrounds and taught them to treat each other as individuals.
“When they start dividing us up by race, it is the Jewish people who will suffer the most. I know this personally because my uncle was denied admission to college in Russia, because they limited the number of Jews who could attend based on a racial quota.”
“I think being Jewish has a lot to do with my point of view here,” Horne says. “I’m shocked that any Jewish person would favor dividing students by race in the public schools.”
Horne says that the Tucson Unified School District has four ethnic studies program, which he lists as “what they call Raza studies, for the Latino kids; African American studies for the African American kids; Asian studies for the Asian kids, and Native American studies for the Native American kids.” He pauses a second and adds, “It sounds like the Nuremberg laws.”
Horne says he’d rather see a good world studies class and a good history class than courses taught by ethnicity.
“The point is for all kids to learn about all cultures.”
For information about what the bill calls for specifically, see here.
26 Jun, 2009 > Comment - 0 -
Welcome to "Need to Know"
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This blog is called "Need to Know" because that's what it is: a look at stories around the Valley and elsewhere that we thought readers needed to know more about. If there's a story you'd like me to look into, e-mail me.
The Anti-Defamation League released its annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents just days shy of the June 10 shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C., surely one of the ugliest of such attacks.
The good news is that according to the report, the number of anti-Semitic incidents reported in the U.S. decreased for the fourth year in a row. The bad (although not surprising) news is that Jews are the number one religious group targeted by hate. The audit identified 37 physical assaults on Jewish individuals, 702 incidences of anti-Semitic vandalism and 613 cases of harassment in 2008.
One of the incidents took place in Prescott in September: According to Bill Straus, who heads up our local ADL office, a Jewish sixth-grade special needs child was beaten by an eighth-grade child after the Jewish child was asked if he was Jewish. "ADL followed up with the school," Straus wrote in an e-mail. "The perpetrator was disciplined."
Straus says quite a few incidents similar to the one in Prescott took place in the course of 2008 but "for one reason or another, primarily the family's not willing to go on the record, they aren't included in the audit. The audit is like the hate crimes statistics. The one thing you know for sure is there's more than indicated on the pages."
Late last month, Phoenix police called to let Straus know that swastikas and graffiti, including anti-Jewish and white power statements, had been drawn on the classroom door of a Jewish teacher at a school in the Valley. Incidents of swastikas alone being drawn or painted or even, lately, burned into grass with chemicals are unfortunately not uncommon; in May, Straus says, vandals defaced a billboard in Chandler marking the future site of a Chabad building with anti-Semitic graffiti.
In Straus's words, if the ADL spent its time following up on every random swastika, "we'd never get anything else done."
18 Jun, 2009 > Comment - 0 -